Floyd Norman on animation

(Source: jimhillmedia.com)

I don't always agree with Jim Hill but there are times when he really gets it. And this is one of those times. He scored a column by former Disney animator Floyd Norman, talking about being a black animator at the Walt Disney Company. Norman, in case you don't know, was the only black animator at the Mouse House during the 1950's and 1960's. He worked on many classic Disney animated flicks, including Sleeping Beauty, The Jungle Book, Mulan, Toy Story 2 and Monsters Inc. Former Disney writer Charles Snows once called Norman "The Lone Negro," an nickname Norman finds hilarious.

There's the occasional bitter mixed in with the funny, as when Norman talks about the fact that he was forced to commute from Los Angeles to Burbank every day. The reason? He knew a black man could never rent an apartment in Burbank or even Glendale.

"I've always loved Toontown in the Roger Rabbit cartoons," Norman writes. "Toontown was the special area of Tinseltown where cartoon characters were segregated because they were -- Toons. I've always thought this a brilliant metaphor for racial inequities in the real world."

He also tells of when, returning from fighting in the Korean War, he discovered racial separation in an Atlanta stop-over.

". . . it was in this city that I discovered something most remarkable. I saw a segregated society for the first time in my life. There were signs everywhere designating where one could sit, drink, or use the restroom. Of course, the separation was made on based on race.

"What's even more amazing is I had just returned from a foreign country where I could pretty much go anywhere I chose. Yet here I was in my own country being restricted to certain areas because of my color. Adding insult to injury, I was wearing the uniform of the United States military. It appears that the freedoms I was fighting for only applied to some people -- and not others."

Here's another eye-opener from Norman, this time about censorship due to politcal correctness:

"Overly sensitive people see racial or ethnic slights in every image. And in their zeal to sanitize and pasteurize everything, they've taken all the fun out of cartoon making. I've had the pleasure of speaking with the late Bob Clampett about his 1943 cartoon, Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarfs (Clampett's notorious all-black take on Disney's Snow White). I've chatted with Ward Kimball about animating the crows in Walt Disney's Dumbo. And lest we forget, many African Americans still love Disney's Song of the South (which features the controversial Uncle Remus). Although some might call these comical images racially insensitive, I merely see them as funny."

This reminds me of a story I've told once or twice before. In 2002, The Cartoon Network (which Turner Broadcasting owns) announced that they would no longer air old Speedy Gonzales cartoons, saying that they perpetuated an offensive stereotype of Mexicans.

Many Mexicans however, disagreed. They told the network in vast numbers that they loved Speedy Gonzales and wanted him back on the air pronto. An embarrassed Cartoon Network did an abrupt about-face and returned the rapid rodent to the airwaves. It's still surprising that many companies won't consult the minority group in question to see if something offends them.

Ultimately, Norman is pretty optimistic about being black in the United States. As he concludes, "We live in incredible times. A time I could not even have imagined while sitting at my Disney desk back in 1956. A black man might be elected President of the United States (Democratic longshot Barack Obama). And the Walt Disney Studio might surprise us with a black princess."

You can read Norman's essay in its entirety over here.

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